Inman: Rickey rants at A’s reunion

Rickey Henderson as you’ve never seen him! (much like Inspector Henderson’s eye-shredoozy take as Parisian police Inspector Lona!)

ON TODAY’S PLAYERS’ LOVE OF THE GAME

I don’t think they love the game like they should. If you love the game and feel like you’re going out there doing your best, you can’t have any pressure. Because you can’t do anything else, as long as you’re trying your best and having fun.

ON ANYONE TODAY THAT REMINDS HIM OF HIMSELF

I can’t say there’s a guy out there that reminds me of myself. I was not a one-dimensional guy. Players out there can’t do as many things as I could do on the ballfield. You got some fast guys out there I like. Jimmy Rollins is from here and I like him as a ballplayer. He used to follow me, and some of the stuff he carries out on the field, I see it in me. He has the heart. The ballplayers, to me, is lacking that, or lacking ‘Where do I want to go as a ballplayer? What do I want to be and achieve?’ Not, ‘What did I get?’ I don’t think you dig deep and say, ‘Can I accomplish what Willie Mays did? Can I accomplish what Ty and Willie did? What Babe Ruth did? What do we shoot for? We used to have films. We used to have to go to a room to look at film of the great ballplayers, to give you an idea of: ‘I want to be like that. I want to be like him. I want to be like Ty Cobb. Ty was crazy but stealing all kinds of bases. I wanted to be like Ty because he was aggressive. I don’t think the kids, I don’t think we teach them that. And I don’t think we teach them fundamentals. Now it’s one-dimensional. All we do is hit home runs. I played with Billy (Martin) and the BillyBall. We squeezed. We bunted ‘em over. We hit and run. We stole. We did the little things.